**Booths grocery chain to ditch self-checkout lanes in their stores**
By David Landsel
Published Nov. 11, 2023, 9:29 a.m. ET
Customers of the popular British grocery chain Booths were surprised to learn this week that the company will be scrapping their self-checkout lanes. This decision comes just six years after the company rolled out the self-checkout lanes in their 28 stores, mostly located in the north of England.
This move goes against the decades-long trend of increasing automation in supermarkets and big box retailers, where human cashiers are becoming more scarce. Booths managing director, Nigel Murray, explained, “We’re not great fans of self-checkouts. We pride ourselves on great customer service and you can’t do that through a robot.”
The company initially adopted the self-checkout approach to manage labor costs and increase efficiency, but they found that the technology could be unreliable and detract from the overall shopping experience.
Booths, an upscale chain of stores founded in 1847, has decided to remove the self-checkout lanes from all their stores except two in the Lake District due to overwhelmed staff during peak tourist times. The company believes that having their employees serve customers directly delivers a better customer experience.
This decision by Booths comes as other retailers have also been struggling with automating the checkout and payment process. Walmart recently removed self-checkout options from some of its stores without explanation, and Wegmans, a popular grocer based in Rochester, recently discontinued a self-checkout app due to abuse.
The trend towards automated checkout has also been tied to the “loneliness epidemic” in some Western countries, where a chat with a checkout clerk may be the only human interaction some people experience in a day.
While self-checkout options were first introduced roughly twenty years ago, many companies leaned heavily on the concept during the pandemic, as customers sought to minimize contact with other human beings.
In conclusion, the decision by Booths to remove self-checkout lanes reflects a broader industry trend and the ongoing debate about the impact of automation on customer experience.